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Thursday, April 14, 2016

Too many times my students have told
me that I shouldn’t bother with them because it was a waste of time. Or why
bother, because they were going to fail anyway. Sometimes students don’t say
that they feel like failures but their actions say it all. They feel defeated
before they even can start.

But how do I get my students to
believe in themselves? How do I get them to believe that they should keep
trying? How do I get them to feel like they can succeed?

Here are things that I do to help
my students.

I start off once a week by
talking to them and telling them that they were born to win. No one is born to
lose. Everyone needs to keep trying and not give up. We talk about ways that we
feel like failures when things don’t go right and how can we help each other
from giving up.

I have the class motto posted on
every wall. It says, “I am a Born Winner!” Students see this every time they
walk into the room and whatever wall they face.

On every paper they turn in to be
graded, they write the class motto on the top of the paper. No paper is
accepted without the motto written on it.

At least once a class period (or
maybe more), I will ask someone to state the class motto.

I walk around the room and check
their work as they complete assignments. If needed, I might give some prompts
to help them be more successful if I see they are trying. Eventually when they
start succeeding, they try harder. They may improve on accuracy or they may
move on to harder more complicated work.

It has taken many years for them
to believe that they are failures (even though it is a wrong belief) so I know
it will take a long time for them to learn to believe that they can succeed. I
do not let them give up!

Eventually they start believing
in themselves and it is a wonderful thing to see. I have had former students
come up to me and tell me that she has a small slip of paper in her wallet with
the class motto. Whenever she faced troubling times, she would pull it out and
remind herself that she could and would succeed.

Do you help students learn to
believe in themselves? How do you do it? Please share.